The World ranking should have 1759 players but it only has 1256.
The other players are only on the China ranking.

The Chinese community is growing faster than the rest of the world, their website is more advanced, and their community is more active.

For several years I have worried about how the language barrier is hurting the minesweeper community. First I will explain the history of the problem, then I will discuss some problems and ideas. Please share your ideas!

History:
- Clone 2007 does not work on Chinese computers and Rodrigo did not fix the problem.
- When ShenJia Zhang made Saolei.net he chose only Clone 0.97, made the website automatic and retired.
- The World ranking is only in English.
- Clone 0.97 was banned, but players could only submit Clone 0.97 to the China ranking
- Damien kept accepting Clone 0.97 from China: it is hard to tell 10,000 Saolei.net players their scores are technically illegal.
- Clone was banned in June 2013 and ShenJia agreed to make a new version of Saolei.net using Arbiter
- The Chinese community has never been asked to help make ranking rules

Ideas:
- Saolei.net should be the official China country ranking. They can do this better than anyone, MSinfo can delete its ranking.
- When a Chinese player qualifies for the world ranking their scores are shared.
- Automatic score sharing means we MUST approve videos using the same rules
- How to deal with the thousands of scores already on the China ranking?

A Solution?
- Create a new database on MSinfo and ask Saolei.net to upload all records from the 619 players who qualify for a world ranking.
- Damien will look at all videos and make sure they meet rules (3bv limits, lucky, cheating) and categorise them
- Everyone will agree on ranking rules, and they will be written in English and Chinese
- Saolei.net will write code to upload videos once a day to the new database if a new player qualifies for the world ranking or an existing player makes new scores. Following the rules, these will automatically be categorised 'official'.
- Damien will write code so the world ranking uses scores from the new database (Chinese uploads) and the MSinfo database, to create a complete accurate world ranking

This has many benefits: if a score is approved at Saolei.net it does not need to be checked again, the ranking will be complete because sharing is automatic, information sharing agreements will be simple (for example, Saolei.net can own information in the MSinfo China database), privacy is respected (Saolei.net can keep information private for the 10,000 players who do not qualify for the world ranking, and we can choose to not share contact info etc), and it will make the World and Chinese communities grow together better. Then we should translate some parts of MSinfo to Chinese, and Saolei.net to English.

(There are many other projects: both sites are trying to make better Admin areas, both sites are working on users uploading a video and the info being automatically extracted from the video file, the Chinese site is make a unversal video player that works in a web page...)

Saolei.net accepted everyone who made scores in three levels.
Minesweeper.info required for sum100 to join the ranking.

Maybe that's why Chinese community is growing faster than the rest of the world. Actually I can't understand why you set a threshold to pretend people join to the ranking. Every minesweeper should have right to join world ranking, no matters what position he will takes. A "World Ranking" should not only accept elite group.

There're 2619 players in the ranking of Saolei.net until now. Only 199 players joined world ranking. You are not missed just 619, but 2420 Chinese players in world ranking.

To be honest, I don't like the idea about upload new videos automatically from Saolei.net to Minesweeper.info. Saolei.net and Minesweeper.info was different sites, and there're few intersection between two communities. Players need make decisions on which site he want to upload by themselves, we can't make those decisions instead of them. By the way, It's very weird to sync data between two different sites.

There're also account issues. Should we create account for new players in Minesweeper.info? What about they register their own account by themselves later? What about they already register but we don't know? It will be a nightmare to deal with user data from two sites.

I'd like to do something to make Chinese players more easier to join world ranking. But I have not found a nice solution yet.

Saolei.net accepted everyone who made scores in three levels.
Minesweeper.info required for sum100 to join the ranking.

Maybe that's why Chinese community is growing faster than the rest of the world. Actually I can't understand why you set a threshold to pretend people join to the ranking. Every minesweeper should have right to join world ranking, no matters what position he will takes. A "World Ranking" should not only accept elite group.

You can join MSinfo with any video since 2012 and be on a country ranking. (The old limits were 6-35-99 because I updated the site manually and am a bad programmer). I agree having limits is stupid and stops the community from growing. The World ranking has a limit of 100s sum and is elite - that is why it is the World ranking. I play tennis (amateur level) and can get a country ranking if I follow rules and play a few matches against friends, but only professionals get on the world ranking. I do not see why there is a problem. (Maybe you did not know the Country ranking allows all videos?)

zhangshenjia wrote:
There're 2619 players in the ranking of Saolei.net until now. Only 199 players joined world ranking. You are not missed just 619, but 2420 Chinese players in world ranking.

Yes, I know. In a perfect world all would join MSinfo - but this will not happen. I want the MSinfo country rankings to be accurate, but if another website can do a country ranking better that is excellent. I am very happy for the China ranking at Saolei.net, and it is sad the Russia ranking died. There is no reason for me to copy all the players on your country ranking because you do such a good job. My main goal is to make the World ranking as accurate as possible.

(If everyone was allowed on the World ranking, then someone with 100-500-2000 can say "I am #6588 in the World" but we know it is false. A million people have better scores but are too amateur to look for a ranking. But most experts do look for a ranking, so the World ranking can be close to accurate. I am sure the Top100 players in the world are on the China or World ranking already.)

zhangshenjia wrote:
To be honest, I don't like the idea about upload new videos automatically from Saolei.net to Minesweeper.info. Saolei.net and Minesweeper.info was different sites, and there're few intersection between two communities. Players need make decisions on which site he want to upload by themselves, we can't make those decisions instead of them. By the way, It's very weird to sync data between two different sites.

Yes, sharing makes security, data ownership, and user rights problems. That is why I thought of a separate database, because Saolei.net would own all the information in the database and have control. (See my next comments below for a solution.) Ownership is important - when Christoph took all scores from MSinfo to start a new IMC ranking he decided I did not own any of the data. It is also very hard to be in a situation where other people tell you what to do with your website and data. I am sorry if it is rude to post the idea here before talking to ShenJia in private - but I want to advertise the problem to get a faster solution.

zhangshenjia wrote:
There're also account issues. Should we create account for new players in Minesweeper.info? What about they register their own account by themselves later? What about they already register but we don't know? It will be a nightmare to deal with user data from two sites.

If players have to register the World ranking will never be accurate, sadly. Obviously it would help if I make Chinese language pages, but most will not register.

I think it is easy to solve those problems: The answers to the 3 questions are 1) No 2) It does not matter 3) SID

For example, the new database would only need PlayerID, ScoreID, name, province and game information. All personal information (email, picture, chat, birthday, mouse, profile) would stay private at Saolei.net so all personal data is not shared. (Also, only about 5% of your players will join the world ranking). If a player wants an English profile they can register at MSinfo - if they don't register the ranking will link to their profile at Saolei.net.

When a Chinese player joins my site I always visit Saolei.net to find their Saolei PlayerID (SID) and put it in the database. The new ranking code can easily group scores by player, so it doesn't matter if they submit scores to both sites (because I can SQL JOIN Chinese players using the SID to prevent duplicates). The only reason a Chinese player would upload scores seperately to MSinfo is to make sure it stays on the world ranking if our agreement stopped.

The things to discuss would be where the database is (the ranking would be faster if at MSinfo, but you would have more control if at Saolei.net), and how to upload scores (a one-off upload of the 619 players, then maybe a button your admin could press every week to update existing world players or add new ones after the previous upload). If the database is hosted at your site, then all I need is a password in my code to use it. I would guess about 2 new world players each week and maybe 20 scores each week, so updates are not big.

zhangshenjia wrote:
I'd like to do something to make Chinese players more easier to join world ranking. But I have not found a nice solution yet.

I hope something happens in 2014, my idea is just one idea Thanks for all your work, and sorry for this long post.

thefinerminer wrote:The World ranking has a limit of 100s sum and is elite - that is why it is the World ranking. I play tennis (amateur level) and can get a country ranking if I follow rules and play a few matches against friends, but only professionals get on the world ranking.

in speedcubing you get a world ranking as long as you meet the requirements of the competition you attend. this means it is possible to get a world ranking even when you are far away from the world records.

thefinerminer wrote:(If everyone was allowed on the World ranking, then someone with 100-500-2000 can say "I am #6588 in the World" but we know it is false. A million people have better scores but are too amateur to look for a ranking. But most experts do look for a ranking, so the World ranking can be close to accurate. I am sure the Top100 players in the world are on the China or World ranking already.)

they can say they are the #6588 on the msinfo world ranking, which is no problem and accurate. while it is very unlikely, there is also the chance, that a million people have sub30 on expert.

EWQMinesweeper wrote: in speedcubing you get a world ranking as long as you meet the requirements of the competition you attend. this means it is possible to get a world ranking even when you are far away from the world records.

Interesting. Btw, that is what the Tournament World ranking does at the moment (anyone who went to a tournament).

EWQMinesweeper wrote:
they can say they are the #6588 on the msinfo world ranking, which is no problem and accurate. while it is very unlikely, there is also the chance, that a million people have sub30 on expert.

True, but unlikely If we want the World ranking to be everyone who can win 3 levels, then sharing our sites is a much bigger problem...

thefinerminer wrote:
You can join MSinfo with any video since 2012 and be on a country ranking. (The old limits were 6-35-99 because I updated the site manually and am a bad programmer). I agree having limits is stupid and stops the community from growing. The World ranking has a limit of 100s sum and is elite - that is why it is the World ranking. I play tennis (amateur level) and can get a country ranking if I follow rules and play a few matches against friends, but only professionals get on the world ranking. I do not see why there is a problem. (Maybe you did not know the Country ranking allows all videos?)

Update a ranking site by manually hears terrible now. I admire to your working but I think you should stop this way (accept videos from email), since most of Chinese players believe that's the only way to update their scores in world ranking. In Saolei.net, most of new comers have sup100 on EXP, but they grow up very fast if you put their new records on the index page.

thefinerminer wrote:
Yes, I know. In a perfect world all would join MSinfo - but this will not happen. I want the MSinfo country rankings to be accurate, but if another website can do a country ranking better that is excellent. I am very happy for the China ranking at Saolei.net, and it is sad the Russia ranking died. There is no reason for me to copy all the players on your country ranking because you do such a good job. My main goal is to make the World ranking as accurate as possible.

(If everyone was allowed on the World ranking, then someone with 100-500-2000 can say "I am #6588 in the World" but we know it is false. A million people have better scores but are too amateur to look for a ranking. But most experts do look for a ranking, so the World ranking can be close to accurate. I am sure the Top100 players in the world are on the China or World ranking already.)

A ranking with more players must be more accurate, instead of inaccurate. Suppose there're two rankings for minesweepers, one get 100 players and another get 10000 players, which ranking is more believable?

What's wrong with a player say "I am #6588 in the World." ? If one of his friend (which is a minesweeper, too) hears those words, he will think : "I know this guy, I can do better than him." Nobody will promote a site which don't even give a poor position for him. As I just said, newbies often grow really fast, they can see their pace of growing (#6588 -> #6099 -> #4500 -> ...), they know everybody will see them on the index page if they play hard and broke the record of themselves, they know their rank will go down if they lack of playing, that will encourage them to keep going.

Whatever you believe or not, the gap between "elite group" and "normal group" is very very small. Members in so-called "elite group" just play more, that's all. I take 4 years for sub60, 1 year for sub50 and 1 year for sub40. However, I know so many players leap to sub60 even sub50, since they only get sub100 several months ago. I believed that most of players can get sub60 with effort, and everyone who get sub60 can get sub50 if they really want.

thefinerminer wrote:
For example, the new database would only need PlayerID, ScoreID, name, province and game information. All personal information (email, picture, chat, birthday, mouse, profile) would stay private at Saolei.net so all personal data is not shared. (Also, only about 5% of your players will join the world ranking). If a player wants an English profile they can register at MSinfo - if they don't register the ranking will link to their profile at Saolei.net.

When a Chinese player joins my site I always visit Saolei.net to find their Saolei PlayerID (SID) and put it in the database. The new ranking code can easily group scores by player, so it doesn't matter if they submit scores to both sites (because I can SQL JOIN Chinese players using the SID to prevent duplicates). The only reason a Chinese player would upload scores seperately to MSinfo is to make sure it stays on the world ranking if our agreement stopped.

The things to discuss would be where the database is (the ranking would be faster if at MSinfo, but you would have more control if at Saolei.net), and how to upload scores (a one-off upload of the 619 players, then maybe a button your admin could press every week to update existing world players or add new ones after the previous upload). If the database is hosted at your site, then all I need is a password in my code to use it. I would guess about 2 new world players each week and maybe 20 scores each week, so updates are not big.

Some developers creep Saolei.net for datas to build their own custom rankings. If what you need is only updating of scores, I have a better solution. I can provide a sets of OPEN API like that:

Then you can poll the first API per hour (or per day) with a timestamp, and you got all of new records on Saolei.net. I suppose you use crontab to do that.
If you got a new SID which is missing in your database, you can get the basic player info (which is needed to show in your ranking) by the second API, and create a new account in your site if necessary.
After that, you can push the new videos to your reviewing system, and link the player's page to (http://www.saolei.net/player/id). I suppose you link the video's page to (http://www.saolei.net/video/id), for more infomation such as comments.